


Proving Tolstoy Wrong

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, CM Family Verse, Families of Choice, LGBT families, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-19
Updated: 2009-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:44:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s torn between wanting a camera and not wanting to blink lest he destroy this picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proving Tolstoy Wrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melliyna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/gifts).



It’s not entirely unusual for Dave to be at work late on any given night, finishing paperwork and tying up loose ends, though he’s done so with decreasing frequency since he found himself drawn in to the Hotchner family. These days, he tries to keep the late nights to a minimum, but every once in a while they’re unavoidable. This is one of those nights, spent wrapping up the bureaucratic red tape after a set of serial murders in Peoria, and it’s a relief to have a home to go to that’s not an empty apartment and a glass of bourbon.

He walks in from the garage around 2130h, and he hears the timbre of Aaron’s low tenor well before he actually sees anyone. Stopping under the arch of the hallway, he leans his shoulder against the wall and just watches.

“ ‘I would gladly learn how this creeping Sméagol became possessed of the thing of which we speak, and how he lost it, but I will not trouble you now.’ ”

The archaic speech patterns roll off the other man’s tongue like he had been born speaking them; Dave’s always thought it probably had something to do with law school and courtrooms, and he’s discovered he has a weakness for Aaron reading Shakespeare. Right now, though, he’s torn between wanting a camera and not wanting to blink lest he destroy this picture.

Aaron has Emily tucked against him on one side, Derek on the other, and though JJ and Penelope are not as fond of fantasy as their older siblings, they’re there anyway, curled up together on the other couch under a blanket, just listening. Spencer sits with them, feet tucked just under the edge of the throw—not excluded, just thinking. For once, he doesn’t have a book in his hands; he knows Tolkien by heart even if he may not understand everything about it, but, as he’d once tried to explain to Dave, he loves being read to because this extraordinary memory he has doesn’t apply to things he _hears_.

It’s Penelope who sees Dave first, blinking sleepily until blue eyes land on him and light up. He holds a finger to his lips with a conspiratorial grin, and she nods, settling back into the cushions.

“ ‘If ever beyond hope you return to the lands of the living and we re-tell our tales, sitting by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief, you shall tell me then. Until that time, or some other time beyond the vision of the Seeing-Stones of Númenor, farewell!’ ”

It never ceases to amuse him that the lawyer’s perfectionism extends to fake languages—Aaron had once scolded him for mispronouncing… something to do with telling. Or tar. Or both, god help him.

“ ‘He rose and bowed low to Frodo, and drawing the curtain passed out into the cave.’

“All right,” he says, shutting the book and setting it on the side table. “That’s the end of the chapter and Dad’s still—”

“No, he’s home,” Dave says, moving out of the hall, and the room almost collectively turns as he comes to sit down on the edge of the coffee table.

Penelope is at his side first, reaching to hug him as she whispers, “I’m glad you’re back” in his ear. He hugs her back.

“Me, too, Pen,” he tells her. This never gets old. Then he looks to Aaron. “You let them stay up?”

The younger man shrugs. “They wanted to wait for you.”

Shaking his head, he tries not to laugh. “Papa is such a pushover,” he comments to no one in particular, in response to a chorus of smothered laughter.

It was Derek, quiet, sure Derek, who had said one day, seemingly out of the blue, “I’m glad you’re here. Dad didn’t make him laugh—not like that.”

For all that he considers Derek an intelligent, observant kid, the comment had surprised him. “What do you mean?”

The boy’s expression had turned wry. “I don’t really know,” he’d admitted. “You just… it’s different, the teasing. I don’t know how to explain it.”

So he’d let him off the hook. He knows full well his relationship with Aaron is different than Jason’s, and he’d never dream of criticizing it (the spontaneous departure notwithstanding, because he’s perfectly happy to shout about that one when it shattered the whole family), but hearing it straight from one of Jason’s own kids had been a bit of an experience.

“Well, then,” Aaron says with a roll of his eyes, nudging Dave back to the present, “Dad made it home, so you three—” He points at Spencer, JJ, and Penelope. “—should be in bed.”

He’s met with a chorus of good-natured groans, but Penelope tugs on Dave’s hand, and JJ makes for Aaron. They tuck them in and say goodnight (“There will come a moment when they _don’t_ want this, and it’ll be all too soon,” Aaron had warned him, “so enjoy it while it lasts.”), and though Spencer has a bit of a habit of simply saying goodnight and slipping away, they both make it a point to stop by his room, make sure he’s settled.

“Are you sneaking ahead, Emily?” Aaron asks with mock sternness as they walk back into the living room. There’s an unwritten rule in the house that if a book is being read aloud, you don’t read ahead. No one really knows where it came from, but it’s _there_ and might as well have been engraved into the wall.

Which is why his daughter looks up with a sombre shake of her head. “I’m rereading the scene in Meduseld,” she tells him in a tone of dignified protest (it occurs to Dave she’d make a good attorney), tipping her head ever so slightly to the right. She’s like a miniature replica of Aaron, sometimes.

Aaron himself grins in response. “That’s my girl.” He squeezes her shoulder, then grabs his mug off the table, turning to Dave. “You want one?”

“Sure.” He’s not entirely sure what it is, but knowing Aaron, it’s probably tea. So he drops onto the sofa, leaning back into the cushions—after spending most of the day (and yesterday) on his feet, he’s not sure he’s going to get back up again. “How was your exam?” he adds to Derek.

The answering smile is open and pleased, if a little shy. “98. I made it.”

Dave grins back, pushing himself back to his feet (oh, the things you do for your kids) to give the boy a hug. This means he’ll be graduating junior high at the top of his class (god, what are we _doing_ to children these days?), and Dave couldn’t be prouder. “Congratulations, Derek.”

The teenager ducks his head, always a little awkward in the face of praise. “Thanks,” he mumbles, but the pleasure bleeds into his voice.

As they both settle back into their respective seats, Aaron walks back in, setting two mugs on the table. “I take it you told him?”

Derek, still grinning, nods, and Aaron looks every inch the proud parent—the one who insists his child’s success is because he invented the school system—as he sinks into the sofa next to Dave. They do, however, appear to be playing musical chairs of a sort, for Emily stands up a moment later, closing the book and setting it back on the table.

“Math homework,” she says by way of explanation, making a face.

There are times when she’s still very much a pre-adolescent girl, which is a good thing. (If she always acted about thirty-five years her senior, both Aaron and Dave would have gone completely grey.)

“Need help?”

Dave’s offer is a token one, and she knows it, because she giggles at the sheer absurdity. This is the man who once stood in the kitchen and insisted for five minutes that three and eleven did indeed make fifteen before banging his head against the cabinets—they’re not about to let him forget it, and she’s not about to let him help her with algebra. He feigns offence and shoos her out; she laughs as she obeys.

“You really _are_ horrible at math,” Aaron observes with a grin. Then he nods at Derek. “You should let him coach you.”

“You’re one to talk,” Dave grumbles. “As I recall, linear algebra was the only class you ever took twice.”

The younger man regards him with an expression of mild amusement. “Yes. As _I_ recall, you once tried to tell me three and eleven made fifteen. I do believe there’s a bit of a gap between addition and linear algebra.”

Derek chokes back a laugh, shakes his head, and puts both hands up, dark eyes amused. (He’s thirteen, and then there are days when he seems thirty; this is one of them.)

“Goodnight,” he says with a grin. “I’m going to let the two of you fight this one out yourselves.”

Chuckling, Aaron shakes his head, but when Derek’s just at the hall, he stops him.

“Yeah?”

“Congratulations,” he repeats, and his son dissolves into bashful pleasure.

“Thanks,” he answers, and then he slips down the hall.

Reaching for his mug on the table, Dave points out, “He’s just like you when it comes to compliments,” and Aaron pulls a face.

“I was worse in grade school,” he admits, shifting on the sofa to pull one knee up toward his chest so he can sort of face Dave.

“Why am I not surprised?”

Aaron rolls his eyes but ignores that, taking a sip of the amber liquid instead. They keep the house comfortable, but nights tend to get just a little cooler. “How was your day?” he asks after a moment, running his hand through his hair.

“Long,” Dave answers. “Caught our unsub,” he continues—Aaron does enough work with the Bureau and the BAU to be familiar with their terminology. “He almost shot one of our agents, but we got him.”

Almost instinctively, Aaron’s gaze swings to focus fully on Dave, searching him up and down. There’s absolutely nothing sexual in his examination—Dave’s actually pretty sure it’s predominantly subconscious.

“It wasn’t me,” he says, offering gentle reassurance, and his partner jumps a little guiltily.

“Sorry,” he says after a moment.

“Nah. Don’t be.” He’ll never admit it aloud, but it’s kind of nice to have someone who worries about him without being intrusive. “How was your case?”

“State won.” It’s the lawyer talking, if only peripherally. “Bruno was a bastard, as always,” he adds, referring to one of Virginia’s leading defence attorneys, “but we won, so he owes me.”

“Congratulations.”

Aaron shoots him an easy smile. “Thanks.”

“It never gets old, does it?”

“No more than catching your unsubs does.”

“Point.”

Then Aaron catches himself in a yawn and glances at the clock. “I have a couple of briefings I should read, and you probably have casefiles; want to head to bed?”

Nodding, Dave shoves himself to his feet and turns to offer the other man a hand up. “That or we fall asleep out here.”

“The couch isn’t _that_ comfortable.”

“I know.”

Dave’s grin is wryly amused—he lost count of the nights he spent on the couch after Jason had left—Aaron’s mildly apologetic, and he snags the extra cup, moving to refill both without asking as Dave switches off the front lights and checks the doors, the alarms, the windows.

It’s routine, and it’s quiet; it’s not quite yet ingrained, but the familiarity is comforting, and Dave pauses in front of a photo on the mantle, taken of the family just a few months ago. He’s inexplicably reminded of Tolstoy’s famous line—the one on how happy families are all alike, and yet unhappy families are all unhappy in their own way. Classic writer though he may be, Dave disagrees: happiness, especially this kind of happiness, is as unique as its flipside.

“Coming?” Aaron asks from the hall, tipping his head to the side curiously. There’s a touch of concern in his eyes, a question of whether or not something’s wrong.

“Yeah,” he answers, looking up, and his smile says everything’s fine. “Coming.”

  
 _Finis._

 _Feedback is always appreciated_.


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